


can't fight the moonlight

by Trojie



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Touring, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 19:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: for no-tags Fall 2019, prompt: Pete/Gerard, long hair club
Relationships: Gerard Way/Pete Wentz
Comments: 15
Kudos: 29
Collections: No Tags Fall 2019





	can't fight the moonlight

***

**The Distant Past**

"'We are not vampires, and that's the important thing." - Gerard Way

***

Somewhere in the depths of the midwest, in the depths of the early 2000s, a hairy, shambling monster that's seeing triple howls and howls in the depths of a disgusting bus toilet, and his friends and brother take turns keeping guard outside the door, and ask each other increasingly desperately what the fuck he took, but none of them can remember.

Meanwhile, somewhere not far away in the same fenced-off parking lot, a skinny kid who shaved his curly hair off three days ago in the heat and who had a lip ring until someone kicked him in the face and he realised it was a dumb idea, is trying to make a wolf throw up. 

No-one knows the number for an all-night vet, and they're too broke for an ambulance, even if they could find one to take him. 

They both wake up okay, naked, bipedal and ashamed, the next morning. The pain is a memory that fades. The monster from the toilet doesn't stop taking things. The one from the parking lot doesn't get better at dosages

One of them never takes his sodden, sweat-wringing clothes off except in private and the other one's always marked up anyway, so no-one notices the fading bite-marks that weren't there this morning.

***

Somewhere in Buttfuck Nowhere, where it doesn't fucking rain and everyone and everything is thirsty, so so thirsty, two boys fall out of a club together, shoving at each other. 'Stay the fuck away from my brother, man,' says one of them, slurring, drunk as drunk can be and with his canines lengthening, although he hasn't noticed that yet.

'What if he won't stay the fuck away from me?' says the other, belligerent and hopped up, his fried-straight bangs already covering more of his face than he remembers them doing last time he looked in a mirror. The words come out rough and choked, daring.

He falls, when all his long bones change lengths like waveforms - proportions shifting - and so does the other, and they look up in synchrony at the sky, the parting clouds, the moon. The howl is musical. 

They have no memory of the rest of the night, either of them, except that they woke up naked, curled together under a bus belonging to another band entirely, and will never live it down.

They're friends after that, sort of.

***

**2006**

Pete finds Gerard under an overpass, nosing at garbage that indicates someone was here not that long ago.

_you fucking Anthony Kiedis now?_

_don't think he leans that way_

_pretty sure he leans every way_

_fuck off, Pete_

Pete waits on him. It's cold, there's literal steam rising off their bodies. He, Pete, ran down here. Followed a scent he hasn't smelled in years. Gerard looks the same, though - shaggy and unkempt, with terrible posture even on four legs. Pete kind of expected there to have been a reflection of his reinvention, as if peroxide flows along with blood and moonlight, but it doesn't, and Gerard is still Gerard. 

And Pete can't leave him to whatever this moody moment he's having is, he just can't. _c'mon,_ he says, nudging Gerard with his shoulder. _want a donut? The fancy bakery just got rid of today's stock_

_aren't we a little past dumpster diving?_ asks Gerard, but he stops casting around through the literal garbage he's been pushing around. 

Pete wants to ask if he was planning on sleeping down here, but doesn't. 

_yeah, because we can so easily purchase donuts without opposable thumbs or wallets_

_fine_

Pete nips at him and gets a yelp, and they barrel off down the road in hot pursuit of each other that hends when they collide with a dumpster that smells of fried pastry and cinnamon and heaven. 

If there's a trail of carnage through the high-end bakeries of Los Angeles the next morning, no-one particularly remarks upon it. Ray, who waited up to let Gerard back into the motel room, doesn't remark on Pete following along behind either, just doles out a couple of fond, exhausted ear-skritches and finds a blanket.

***

**2009**

The answer-machine beeps.

_'Pete. I'm. I'm around, this month, if you want. If you need someone who gets it. _

_Yeah. _

_Uh. Call me?'_

Pete rips the phone cord out of the wall.

***

**2013**

You have - twelve - new messages.

_'Gerard, I can't get hold of Mikey and I'm freaking out, man. What the fuck -'_

beep

_'I can't believe you guys are -'_

beep

beep

beep  
beep  
beep beep

beep  
beep

beep

_'Gerard. Fucking. Just tell me you're okay. I'll be out tonight, come find me -'_

beep

***

**The Present Day**

It's Ray's idea of a funny joke, starting House of Wolves as the encore. Gerard tries to glare at him, but Mikey's bouncing around happily on his little feet, tight together like a pogo stick, and he can't begrudge his brother the fun of it. Even if he can feel his hair growing a little despite being well away from the moonlight.

You can't fight it, no. LeAnn Rimes got that right. 

She also got the halter top and those boots right, in Gerard's very specific grew-up-in-the-2000s opinion, but that's in a different way. And he doesn't have the rack for that halter top, alas. 

(Whether or not he knows this because he tried is a secret.)

Also the crowd is going fucking nuts. They've been going fucking nuts all night, actually, because most of them turned up for the opener just to bag a good spot for the headliner, and they weren't expecting _this_. 

It's been a long long time since Gerard played an opening spot, which feels like a stuck-up thought to have standing next to Frankie, who's been working himself like a rented mule since they broke up, touring and touring and touring, but it's true and it's fun, y'know? Back to basics, no room for fuck-ups. If they're not absolutely fucking on tonight they're going to get panned, and really, isn't this where they've always lived, as a band? Defying expectations? Sticking both middle fingers up at the world and its expectations? 

Belting the last few lines, Gerard gets distracted by watching Ray throw himself back to back with Mikey and then gets collided with by Frank sliding in on his knees at approximately belly-height, and it's fair to say, in the ensuing tangle of limbs, that he wasn't quite expecting _this_ either, but oh man he's fucking happy about it.

***

Playing a secret show like this wasn't Gerard's idea. Management wanted to ease them into the idea of touring, and they were lucky, they've still got friends, they're still owed favours. Mikey offered to make the phonecall, but Gerard was the one who actually did it, left the message, full of trepidation that had nothing to do with the business offer on the table. He owed Pete that much, the gesture of being the one to pick up the phone, even six years and ten new phones too late.

He shouldn't have worried. Pete went hogwild for the concept, for the potential mayhem, and the … Gerard's pretty sure he used the phrase 'mythic quality' but it's Pete, the words swirl on by at high speed whenever he's excited about something. 

He's already been full tilt manic about this Hella Mega Tour (god. Why. Who keeps letting him name things? Have they not met his (adorable) children?) and now? 

'My Chemical fucking Romance wants to open for me? Where do I sign?'

'Yeah, yeah, it'll be like Skynyrd opening for the Stones. We only want to open for you so we can blow you out of the water, Wentz,' says Frank amiably. 

Pete grins. 'As long as you're blowing me, I don't care where you're doing it.'

Ray and Mikey roll their eyes in perfect unison. Patrick smacks Pete on the back of the head, making his ponytail swish. 

It's just like old times.

***

'I'm gross, I'm gross, I'm really fucking gross, get off me, I need to shower,' Gerard singsongs out of his rough throat, trying to divest himself of bandmates, desperately aware of his own stench now that he's a civilised adult who regularly bathes.

'Oh how the turn tables,' says Frank, allowing himself to be shaken free from the group hug. 'Once upon a time people were literally paying you actual money to try and get you to shower and you still weren't doing it.'

Gerard winces in the vice-grip of memory. There was a pool, on … fuck, which tour was it? One of the ones he was shitfaced drunk for, probably. Everyone pitched in. He still didn't shower. He forgets what they all ended up spending the money on.

'I have to _go out_, guys,' Gerard says, putting weight on the phrase and trying to comb a hand through his stiff, sticky, gross hair. 'This shit is bad enough with sweat all through it but if I change and change back again I'm gonna have to fucking shave it all off and start again, there'll be no fucking way I get a brush through it after that.'

'He's going to _shower_,' says Ray with reverence, apparently ignoring the rest of it.

'I'm buying Lindsey a fruit basket,' says James, wiping his face off with the hem of his own shirt. 'And a bouquet. And a puppy.'

***

Gerard fucks around for a while after his shower - goes and catches the last few numbers on Weezer's set, sees Mike in the hall backstage and shoots the shit briefly, laughing about being old (Mike calls him _youngster_ fondly. Gerard has never really felt like a youngster in his life and definitely not now) - and then makes it back to the bus to find Mikey on the phone to the family and Ray and Frank communing over Ray's laptop. He's filled up with warm, contented feelings, all the good shit about being on the road even though they have yet to actually, like, leave.

Sure, the bad shit will bite in a few days at least. Crap food, crappier coffee, everyone's gas and socks and disgusting personal habits will come to the fore, but they were always the grossest band on the circuit and it didn't bother them then. Gerard strongly suspects it won't bother them now. 

He wants to curl up with Mikey, hear Rowan giggle at his voice like she always does, but the moon, man. It pulls. He could yank the blankets over his head, stay out of the moonlight, and not change at all, like he used to, but he'd feel fucking gross. And if there's one thing he's learned as an adult, one of the things that he learned in time to help him survive to _be_ an adult, it's that some things you just gotta bite the bullet, and do. 

He changes in the tiny bus toilet, and remembers this time to not lock the fucking thing. There was one time in … fuck, Wisconsin? … when he got trapped, and that sucked. 

He leaves his pants in the toilet. They'll be fine.

Pete's scent, unmistakeable, unforgettable, is _everywhere_ when Gerard finally pokes his nose outside. Like he's been rubbing himself on everything in sight, though Gerard knows he hasn't. He doesn't need to. When in human form, if Pete's in the room, that's where you're looking - he draws the eye. And in wolf form it's the same - if Pete's been within a mile of you, you know about it. 

Gerard leans briefly against Mikey's hip as he holds the door open, a silent _thanks bro_ and then pads off down the alleyway. Worm tips him a wave as he passes the bus, and then taps his wrist meaningfully. 

It's a 1am start, back on the road. Gerard knows. This isn't his first rodeo, buddy. Curfew is boring, anyway - the smells of LA at night are much more interesting. 

Pete cannons into him cheerfully maybe twenty minutes later, which is nuts - did he just transform the second he got off stage, or something? Gerard's ears have barely stopped twitching from the audience screaming at _Saturday_.

_Hi!_

It's hard to explain how he knows what Pete's … saying, is probably the right word, even though he's not like. Vocalising. There's no language of barking and whining. He just kind of knows, maybe by body language? By scent? By something, anyway. 

He butts his head against Pete's shoulder. _long time, man_

Pete's entire demeanour is delighted. Tired, maybe - he droops, from the tips of his ears to the tip of his tail - but delighted. _too long, too long_. His legs are long and his his fur is longer, Gerard thinks, than it was last time they hung out in this shape, but it's not like hairstyles survive the transformation, so he's pretty sure that's his imagination. Pete's always been fluffy. It suits his personality. Apex predator, but y'know. Cuddly. 

The alleyway ends and opens out onto a street that's still got fans streaming down it, too many loitering for Gerard's taste, so they slink behind a long row of dumpsters and then pad down the next alleyway that presents itself, stealthing their way block by block from the venue out into neutral territory where the majority of people aren't wearing t-shirts from ten years ago that they've kept religiously in their closets for this specific occasion. 

God. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This could be the same full moon as 05, when Gerard was hopped up so high he walked into traffic, or 06, when he was morose and had a fucking balcony to brood on and for ten seconds seriously wondered what would happen if he jumped. Or 09, when he was refusing to change again because it'd mean leaving Mikey awake and alone. The sights and the sounds, they're all the same, but Gerard isn't. 

Maybe that means Pete isn't either.

Two full-grown wolves can't just walk down the street brazenly, but in the shadows they manage to keep to, they can wander slowly, heads down, playing stray dogs. It's not so scary as it could be. They both know this town by now, know how not to get noticed, how not to get nabbed.

Time was, a kid from New Jersey and a Chicago boy could get very lost in LA. Drunk and high and discombobulated from having four legs all of a sudden, because neither of them was any fucking good at keeping track of when the full moon was coming. Pete busted Gerard out of a dog pound once, a long time ago. Or rather, he high-tailed it back to where his band were staying and, presumably by doing some version of a Lassie impersonation, got Andy to come back with a set of bolt-cutters (that he "just had around") and bust Gerard out.

It's a fact that they're both lone wolves, in the strictest definition of the term, but they've been lone wolves together more than a few times. They look out for each other when they can. There aren't that many lycanthropes in LA right now, there were fewer still in the hardcore scene circa 2004. Gerard and Pete haven't always got along on two legs, but on four legs they've pretty much been … well.

Pete's not pack, only Gerard's band could come close to being his pack, but they're … they're not not-pack. They're something. 

The long hair club, Pete calls it mischievously. And no-one's ever asked why, even though this is probably the first time in twenty years they've both actually had long hair. 

They hit a vacant lot after a while, and oh man, the relief of warm dirt under his paws after hard, hot asphalt and cement is so good. Gerard's tired in his bones, and he just wants to lay down under the sky for a while and … breathe, mainly. You can't see fucking stars in LA but he can watch the planes go by overhead. He finds a little nook by a chunk of old concrete, and nestles himself down. After a few minutes sniffing around, Pete joins him. 

He's been oddly quiet tonight. 

Gerard nudges him softly with his nose. _you okay?_

_just thinking_

_about?_

Pete shrugs, a many-shouldered shrug that goes all the way down his body where it's snugged up to Gerard's. _old times. dumb shit._ He tips his long nose upwards. _what stars are made of, i guess, and where they go_

He snaps lightly at Gerard's jaw, doglike in the face of his own poetry, and Gerard doesn't ask any more, just settles his head heavily onto his paws and hopes Pete knows he'll listen, if Pete wants to talk. They haven't always been good at this. Reaching out olive branches gets them broken, mostly. 

_missed you_ Pete adds, dropping his own head down. Their noses touch, which is a little Lady-and-the-Tramp for Gerard's taste but he doesn't move. 

_they're not gone_ he says eventually. _stars don't leave_

Pete twists so he can look Gerard in the eye, then pointedly up at the hazy mirage of LA's night sky. 

Gerard noses at him, the big moody diva. _they're still there, doofus, you just can't see them from here_

_good thing we're going on tour then. maybe i'll see some more stars on the way_

MCR aren't joining Hella Mega Tour - they're going to do the small-venue circuit for a while, ease their way back in, build some hype. They've got things to say again, and Gerard's so fucking excited about it. 

But that doesn't mean they won't ever be in the same city at the same time, on a full moon, again.

_you will_ he tells Pete. _they'll be around, when you're in the right place_

Pete licks him right in the face. _good_

***

**The Morning After**

The curtain on Gerard's bunk gets unceremoniously yanked back and he doesn't have time to question why or why he doesn't feel as cold as he normally does, because Frank's laughing already.

'Dude, this is a fucking Coyote Ugly moment if ever I saw one.'

Pete, reaching over Gerard blindly, drags the curtain shut again. 'Fuck off, Iero, the only one with regrets here is you.'

He nuzzles his face back into the crook of Gerard's shoulder. ''M really glad I actually nutted up and called you back, this time.'

**Author's Note:**

> who knows why this was the fic that arose from the swamp of my brain in response to this prompt, but it was, and now you all have to deal with that with me
> 
> <333 thanks OP this was super fun to write, I hope you like it!


End file.
